Red Pain
by Anrheithwyr
Summary: Susan has always sought that which would make her feel what she could not. Even if it hurts, she runs after it anyway, because dying is better than feeling nothing at all. *Mentions of self-injury and death.*


Under the roaring water of the sink, her hand comes away red, the blood trickling down either side of her palm, running down her fingers into the darkening water below. It is a horrorifying sight, a painful sight, but all she can feel is a sense of exhilaration as she runs her hand under the water with a satisfied gleam in her eyes.

Red, _fuck_, she had never understood how red blood truly was until now, with the cut bleeding so profusely that her head spins. Red as her hair, red as her cheeks, red as the feeling of anger that burns in her heart; and it all comes out in the blood that pours into the kitchen sink.

She is careful to be quiet, careful that her mum does not hear her stifled sobs, because it is early, early, early in the morning and she is _not _supposed to be up. She probably wasn't supposed to be dragging a knife across her arms until they bled like spilt roses, yet here she was, teeth gritted as the pain cut deep.

She did not have a good answer for _why_, had anyone come into the kitchen and found her, feet stretched on a step-stool, serrated knife grasped in her bloody left-hand as she let the sink fill with water and her own red life, swirling together in a horrible mixture that sickened her, but not enough to make her stop.

Had anyone asked _why_, she would only have been able to stare blankly and wonder right back at them _why?_ Why _was_ she doing this, why _was_ she letting the red life pour out of her like it was nothing important, nothing special at all except for the very thing that was helping to keep her breathing and existing?

But the knife felt _good_, the knife felt _cold_, and most importantly, the knife felt _real_. She struggled to feel real anymore, not after the year she had had at Hogwarts. All of that _madness_, and all she could ever do anymore was drag a red-stained knife across her flesh until the only thing left in the world was the bite of pain and the red-filled water of her mum's kitchen sink.

She is thirteen years old the first time she ever pulls out the knife. Thirteen, and Susan Bones already knows she had fallen in love with the bloody red pain of self-inflicted emotions.

…

After Anthony leaves, Susan feels the red that stains her sheets, the red that stains _her_, coating everything in her worldview. No one had told her it would hurt this much; no one had told her that he would be rough and harsh, a grunting, snarling beast that wore the face of a man. Anthony had grabbed her sheets forcefully and moaned the whole time, but Susan was the one feeling like something had been _taken_ from her.

_Her virginity_, her precious gift and the one thing she had thought was left to offer, but Susan has given it away to a blond boy who doesn't even have the decency to say good-bye as he slips out of her bedroom window; he only grins and comments that it's lucky they live so near each other, or else he might not have bothered coming by at all.

She loves Anthony, who has spoken to her with kindness and sweet compliments up until tonight, following her around the school, making Susan laugh when no one else could. Anthony is a good friend, a _lovely _friend, and there were, of course, much worse people out in the world-and even at Hogwarts itself-to give away one's virginity to.

That does not make up for the fact that Anthony clambers out of her window and shimmies onto the branch outside without even a _good-bye_ or an _I love you_ or _thanks for giving away the only pure part left of you that you had to give away_. Susan lets him leave, barely able to protest, barely able to move at all.

Anthony has left her in a strange sort of agony that Susan struggles to recover from. She lies in the bed, stained red on yellow sheets, for hours afterwards, hoping that her parents do not come home earlier than they had said they would. If they find her like this, bloodied and bruised, she will not be able to explain why she let _Anthony Goldstein_ do this to her.

Why, even when it hurt and all she could see was the stinging red of pain, she let him touch her and push her and…_Merlin, _was this what love was? Letting a boy make you bleed, make you cry, if it meant that he'd not even say good-bye when he was leaving you to curl up on your bed and shudder with pain as red stains your sheets?

And, when she finally gets up and bundles her red-stained sheets together with a sigh, Susan knows that, should Anthony come back asking for more, she will let him in. She will let him in, as she always has, though this is the first time they have ever done _that_.

But Susan will always let Anthony come back, because he makes her…_feel_ things, which she has always craved. Feelings, pain, anything that she can find, Susan runs after. Like the knife, which still sits quietly in Susan's desk drawer, waiting for her to pull it out and let the red flow down her arms and into the bathroom sink, which she has since discovered is easier to clean than Mum's big kitchen one.

She is fifteen, the first time she ever lets Anthony Goldstein make her bleed red. Fifteen, and Susan Bones knows that she has long-ago fallen in love with the bloody red pain of existence.

…

When she finally gives up, finally stops, Susan realises she hates the colour red more than anything else in the world. She hates the colour of her hair, which has gone limp and lifeless over the years, as she has given in to everything and everyone else around her. She hates the colour of her blood, which has been spilt so many times into sinks and onto stone and onto sheets that she no longer cringes at the sight of it.

She hates the sight of the red-tinged crossing marks across her arms that make it _oh so clear_ just how messed up she is. Even now, even though she is twenty-two, Susan cannot stop wanting to grab the knife, tucked away in a drawer somewhere in her flat. She still wants to make the red blood spill from her scratched and bruised arms until pain is the only thing left to feel.

Susan watches as they bury her daughter, who had acquired Susan's red hair, the shock of flame covering her tiny, little head. She sobs as the coffin is lowered into the ground, the coffin that is barely anything at all, because her poor baby was barely even six months old, barely even alive, and Susan had already lost her child.

And the other daughter, the daughter that Susan still has, little almost-seven Hannah, who was not a blessing, not a gift; _she_, of the also alarmingly familiar red hair, clings to Susan's hand and asks when Daddy will be coming back, because it has been almost nine days, and where is Daddy? When is Daddy coming back, Mummy? Where did Daddy go? _Daddy_.

_Fuck him_, Susan says, squeezing her daughter's hand untilt the flesh is red, and though Susan knows the girl will bruise later, she does not care. Not anymore. _Fuck your father, I hope I never have to see him again. He didn't deserve to be here. He didn't deserve me, but I gave myself up to him anyway, didn't I? gave myself up and let him make me bleed until there was more red on my sheets than cloth. I had to throw those old things away, did you know, Hannah? Threw them away the day I found out about you._

_Mummy, I am scared_, Hannah says, trying to pull from Susan's grip, her red hair flashing in the early morning light, but Susan can only see Anthony in front of her, that smirk on his face as he tells her that _it can't be his child_, she must have slept with someone else, _you goddamn whore._ And wasn't she only just fifteen years old, much too young to be a mother? Much too young to be a _goddamn whore_ whose entire life was stained with red and pain and confusion.

And she knows, when she gets home, that the knife will be waiting, as Anthony will not be, and she will fill the kitchen sink with blood, _damn the mess_. Hannah is crying now, confused, but Susan does not care. Has she ever cared about anything except for the chase after whatever will make her feel again, even if it does turn her whole damn life red?

She is twenty-two the first time she realises that life has nothing in store for her. Twenty-two, and Susan Bones finally knows that she never wanted the red, _red_ pain that has filled her life.


End file.
